Good timing is important

OK, the Phactors decide to escape as much winter as possible by going to Hawaii for 3 weeks (Maui and Kauai).  During that time we escape the polar vortex, although we fully expect to see the ravages of extreme cold when spring arrives.  Arrived back on Feb. 5th and 3 days later a freaky winter storm hits Hawaii, and Maui even gets snow!  Went up fairly high on the volcano to see some native vegetation and birds the subject off this blog just a few days ago.  And they got snowed on, and the Phactors missed it.  Usually our timing is not that good.  Much better to remember our lodgings on Kauai without any high winds or snow in the picture.  This was great.  

Bird-Flower pairing on Maui

TPP is taking a timeout from the January weather of the upper Midwest (generally bad) by spending a couple of weeks in Maui where the weather is usually good.  It certainly is lovely right now.  Now many readers will know that it is hard sometimes to find native plants and animals because non-natives plants and animals abound.  But by driving up the side of a volcano you can get to alpine plants and animals, and that's what we did.  A lovely leguminous shrub was flowering, providing some nectar for the native honeyeaters, and indeed, they were observed as well.  So this was a great pairing; a flower shaped by and for the bill of a honeyeater and the bird itself, which was quite spectacular.  TPP has an image of the flowers, a typical bean flower, but more bent to match the bill of this honeyeater, the i'iwi.  The bird image was obtained from the wiki creative commons and is the work of Alan Schmierer, so thanks Alan.  The shrub was a typical enough  Sophora (S. chysophylla)